Horace Mann

It is through mental strength only that man becomes the superior and governor of all animals.

Now, a man is weak in his muscles; he is strong only in his faculties.

To secure the abolition of his freedom, the growth of his mind must be abolished.

He must not be educated, lest with education should come a knowledge of his natural rights, and the means of escape or the power of vengeance.

But slavery is hostile to the pecuniary advancement of the community in another way.

Many a mother is there who will tell you that her children are but scantily supplied with bread, and much more scantily with meat, and if they be clad with comfortable raiment, it is at the expense of these scanty allowances of food.

Many a one is reared in proud South Carolina, from birth to manhood, who has never passed a month in which he has not, some part of the time, been stinted for meat.

Shall we pass unnoticed the thousands of poor, ignorant, degraded white people among us, who, in this land of plenty, live in comparative nakedness and starvation?

It is only necessary to travel over the sterile mountains of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire, to learn the true secret of our difficulties,”--“to learn the difference between indolence and industry, extravagance and…

We need never look for thrift while we permit our immense timber forests, granite quarries, and mines to lie idle, and supply ourselves with hewn granite, pine boards, laths, shingles, &c., furnished by the lazy dogs of the north.

My recent visit to the northern states has fully satisfied me that the true secret of our difficulties lies in the want of energy on the part of our capitalists, and ignorance and laziness on the part of those who ought to labor.

Another answer to the above assertion is, that if white labor were reputable at the south, and white men were industrious, the whole country would be a garden,--a terrestrial paradise,--so far as neatness, abundance, and beauty are…

Nothing but the feeling of independence, the conscious security of working for one’s self and one’s family, will, in the present state of the world, make labor profitable.

Abolish those sources of wealth, which consist in the personal industry of every man, and of each member of every man’s family, and that wide-spread thrift, and competence, and elegance, which are both the reward and the stimulus of labor…

A universal concomitant of slavery is, that it makes white labor disreputable.

More is lost in production than is gained by privation.

The slave states gain millions of dollars every year from the privations, the mean food, clothing, and shelter to which the slaves are subjected; and yet they grow rich less rapidly than states where millions of dollars are annually…

A scanty subsistence, a squalid garb, a mean and dilapidated hovel, proclaim the degradation of the slave.

Just as certain as that the locomotive can outrun the horse, and the lightning outspeed the locomotive, just so certain is it that he who is animated by the hopes and the rewards of freedom will outstrip the disheartened and fear-driven…

The former can never compete with the latter; and while the greater service is performed with cheerfulness, the smaller is extorted by fear.

This is one of the reasons why slave labor is so much less efficient than free labor.

Slavery, therefore, though claiming to be a kind of property, is the bane of property; and the more slaves there are found in the inventory of a nation’s wealth, the less in value will the aggregate of that inventory be.

Who does not know that a slave, who can rationally hope to purchase his freedom, will do all the work he ever did before, and earn his freedom-money besides?

If a despot can seize and confiscate the property of his subject at pleasure, the subject will not acquire property, and thereby give to himself the conspicuousness that invites the plunder.

All history illustrates the principle, that when property is insecure, it will not be earned.